the sum of 23 and victor age is 59 Let's Victor's age be a. The sum of 23 and Victor's age (a) mean we add a to 23: 23 + a The word is means an equation, so we set 23 + a equal to 59: 23 + a = 59 <-- This is our algebraic expression Now if the problem asks you to take it a step further and solve this for a, we type this equation into our search engine and we get: a = 36